View full sizeRICK BOWMBER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESSPeople wait in line at a Portland job fair. It may not feel like it now, but forecasters expect economic growth to add nearly 300,000 jobs to Oregon payrolls during this decade.

The Oregon Employment Department, which released the long-term projections Thursday, predicts 27 percent growth in professional and business services. The slowest-growing sector will be government, with 7 percent growth over the decade.

Charlie Johnson, an Employment Department analyst, said the forecast, conducted every two years, ignores economic ups and downs to divine long-term trends. "The goal here is not to predict a precise employment level," he said, "but it's a tool for students, job seekers, business leaders and policy-makers."

As such, the predictions have limitations. The agency predicted 12 percent employment growth between 2000 and 2010, but the recession toward the end of that period pushed the actual rate to negative 1 percent. The current forecast is for 18 percent growth during the 2010s, a decade in which Oregon's population is expected to grow by 431,300.

The projections show that on some fronts, Oregon has a lot of ground to make up. "Although they are projected to grow from their 2010 levels," an agency report said, "the construction, manufacturing and financial activities industries are not anticipated to reach their pre-recession employment levels before the year 2020."